The User Profile Service failed the logon. User profile cannot be loaded. (Windows 7 user profile loading problem)

Hey guys! recently I faced an issue in which when you log on to a Windows 7 based or a Windows Vista-based computer by using a temporary profile, you receive the following error message: The User Profile Service failed the logon. User profile cannot be loaded.

Many websites give you all sorts of fixes. I tried all of them till I came across this fix which really did the trick. I would like you to follow the steps very carefully. It is simple but could confuse anyone.

Read on................... all the best!

Occasionally, Windows might not read your user profile correctly, such as if your antivirus software is scanning your computer while you try to log on. Before you follow the methods here, try restarting your computer and logging on with your user account again to resolve the issue. If you restart your computer and it does not resolve this issue, use the following methods to resolve this issue.

Note You must be able to log on to an administrator account to fix your user profile or copy your data to a new account. Before you resolve the issue, log on to Windows by using another account that has administrative permissions, or restart in safe mode to log on with the built-in administrator account. 

To know about starting your computer in safe mode click here: Safe mode start

Method 1: Fix the user account profile

To fix the user account profile, follow these steps:

Important This section, method, or task contains steps that tell you how to modify the registry. However, serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly. Therefore, make sure that you follow these steps carefully. For added protection, back up the registry before you modify it. Then, you can restore the registry if a problem occurs. For more information about how to back up and restore the registry, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

1. Click Start, type regedit in the Search box, and then press ENTER.

2. In Registry Editor, locate and then click the following registry subkey:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList

3. In the navigation pane, locate the folder that begins with S-1-5 (SID key) followed by a long number.

4. Click each S-1-5 folder, locate the ProfileImagePath entry in the details pane, and then double-click to make sure that this is the user account profile that has the error.

• If you have two folders starting with S-1-5 followed by some long numbers and one of them ended with .bak, you have to rename the .bak folder. To do this, follow these steps: 

a. Right-click the folder without .bak, and then click Rename. Type .ba, and then press ENTER.

b. Right-click the folder that is named .bak, and then click Rename. Remove .bak at the end of the folder name, and then press ENTER.



c. Right-click the folder that is named .ba, and then click Rename. Change the .ba to .bak at the end of the folder name, and then press ENTER.

• If you have only one folder starting with S-1-5 that is followed by long numbers and ends with .bak. Right-click the folder, and then click Rename. Remove .bak at the end of the folder name, and then press ENTER.

5. Click the folder without .bak in the details pane, double-click RefCount, type 0, and then click OK.

1. Click the folder without .bak, in the details pane, double-click State, type 0, and then click OK.

Close Registry Editor.

Restart the computer.

Log on again with your account.

This should ideally solve your issue.

In case it doesn't then try the following:

Method 2: Log on to Windows and copy your data to a new account

Create a new account and copy the data from the old account to the new account. For information about how to do this, visit one of the following Microsoft websites:

Windows 7Fix a corrupted user profile (Windows 7)

Windows VistaFix a corrupted user profile (Windows Vista)

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